Op/Ed

The U.S. economy—President Obama’s economy—is sending decidedly mixed signals. While some economic indicators are picking up, many others are headed south—which means there’s a good chance the economy could slip into recession again soon.

Seniors strongly supported Mitt Romney in the 2012 election over President Barack Obama, and now Obama attempts to get his revenge in his most recent budget proposal with cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as well as tax hikes for estates and 401(k)s.

The U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has been ratcheting up its use of some questionable methods for determining hiring or pay discrimination, amounting to a perpetual witch hunt of manufactured culprits to harass in order to justify their own existence—and budget.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen has inadvertently called attention to the fact that those "special tax breaks" just for the oil and gas industry don't exist. Mr. Van Hollen proposes to create some very special punishments instead. Regardless of the bill's fortunes on Capitol Hill, it has already performed a public service by illuminating the fallacy behind assaults on the industry.

It appears that Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) will slip under the Affordable Care Act’s threshold for qualified coverage—although just barely. And given the fact that HSAs, and similar high deductible health insurance options, are about the only type of health coverage bending down the health care cost curve, they may even thrive.

On the eve of ObamaCare’s third anniversary one thing is for sure: there have been a lot of surprises in the last three years — most of them bad. And the White House and Democrats are about to get their next big surprise when health care spending explodes.

Developing a viable guest worker program should be the first item on the immigration reform agenda, not the last.

I don’t know how much money President Obama thinks it saves by canceling White House tours, but we do have several estimates of how much Medicare and Medicaid fraud cost.  Typical estimates put the figure in the $60 billion a year range for each program.

Health insurance for the poor doesn't have to be poor insurance. And yet that's exactly what Medicaid is. Obama refused to try new and innovative ways to cover the low-income populations. Maybe the opt-out states can.

The combined impact of a minimum wage hike and ObamaCare's health coverage mandate  spell disaster for low-income jobs and workers.